WESTMINSTER, Md., Oct 12 (Reuters) - Scott Strzelczyk is fed up with what he calls political
slavery in Maryland and sees one way out - creating a breakaway state, a feat that has not been
accomplished since the American Civil War.
Riding a wave of anti-government sentiment across the United States, the small-town information
technology consultant has launched a long-shot bid to get Maryland's five conservative western
counties to secede from the state, one of the most liberal and Democratic in the country.
"We think we have irreconcilable differences, and we just want an amicable divorce," Strzelczyk, 49,
told Reuters after pitching secession to the We the People Tea Party group in Carroll County, a county
he hopes will be part of the split.
Strzelczyk's breakaway bid is unlikely to be a serious threat to the state, since it faces nearly
insurmountable obstacles. But he is not alone. His Western Maryland Initiative is just one of several
secession proposals that are emerging across the United States.
Nearly a dozen rural Colorado counties have put nonbinding secession referendums on their November
ballots. A split-off proposal for southern Florida has also been floated.
Some residents of northern California want to join with counties in southern Oregon to form their own
state. Liberals in Tucson, Arizona, fed up with the conservative state governor and lawmakers, want out
as well.

The United States has seen
hundreds of secessionist
schemes throughout its
history, and almost all have
failed. No state has been
formed by seceding from
another since 1863, when
West Virginia was created
during the Civil War.
But analysts said the upsurge
in breakaway bids was part of
a larger frustration with
government, including the
sort of legislative gridlock
that produced this month's
federal government shutdown. Recent opinion polls,
for example, show job
approval for the U.S.
Congress hovering in the teens.
GERRYMANDERING
In Maryland, secession hopes feed on tensions between conservative rural voters and more liberal
urbanites, said Todd Eberly, assistant political science professor at St. Mary's College on Maryland's
Eastern Shore.
But Republicans as well as Democrats have also fueled secession efforts around the country by
gerrymandering, or manipulating the boundaries of legislative districts while in power to bolster ruling
party support and guarantee that those who oppose them are shut out, he said.
This often leaves people in these districts feeling stuck with politicians who do not represent their
views.
"It's making people with minority viewpoints in those states feel that they have absolutely no place at
the table. Nothing," Eberly said.
The U.S. Constitution allows regions to separate only with the approval of the state legislature and
Congress, an almost insuperable hurdle for breakaway dreamers.
Strzelczyk, a father of five from New Windsor, Maryland, told the conservative Tea Party group in
Westminster, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Washington, that the uphill fight for secession was
essential because of gerrymandering by Democrats.
"We are basically enslaved to one political party. There is no simple way around that," Strzelczyk said
in a movie-themed mall restaurant, with a life-size cutout of John Wayne as part of the backdrop.

He was also fed up with rising fees and taxes and a state land-use plan he sees as government
meddling. But the last straw, he said, was the state's passage this year of one of the toughest gun control
laws in the country.
Maryland's five western counties - Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Carroll and Frederick - stretching
east from the Allegheny Mountains, stand in sharp contrast to urban areas centered on Baltimore and
the Washington suburbs.
Census Bureau figures show the area has 11 percent of Maryland's population of 5.9 million and much
of it has significantly lower median income than the state as a whole. It has a much higher percentage
of white residents, compared with 58 percent of the state overall.
Garrett County Commissioner Gregan Crawford said the mountainous county had good relations with
the state capital Annapolis, and with Washington, and had received extra state money for education and
sports events.
"When you look at the reality of what it would take to secede, it's really, I think, a folly," Crawford
said. A spokeswoman for Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley had no comment on the Western
Maryland Initiative.
Strzelczyk's effort is only a few months old and it is still largely confined to his Facebook page, where
the proposal has gotten 7,000 "likes." At the meeting of We the People, he drew agreement for initiative
along with questions about its practicality.
Bob Kurland, 60, an automobile transmission rebuilder, said he would support breaking away, but
doubted that the Democrat-dominated state legislature would give its approval.
"My personal belief is that I will probably move to Wyoming before too much longer. I believe
Maryland has reached a tipping point," he said. (Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone
and Gunna Dickson)